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It was not yet dawn, but Ian was wide awake. He lay with his hands behind his head, watching the eastern border of the sky pearl just a trifle before the first faint streaks of pink appeared. The tent flap was drawn, and it moved a little in the mild breeze. It would be dry and hot, Ian thought, but probably that would not matter. If all went well, they should have the keep before the worst heat of the day. The weather, at least, had returned to normal. After a December and January of quite unusual mildness and dryness, February had concentrated all of winter into one blow. |
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They had been very fortunate to escape with so little loss. In the beginning of the month, all the rain heaven had stored through the autumn and early winter seemed to fall, and on the 27th the wind had come. That had been a wind to end all winds. Serfs' huts had been lifted bodily and flung to earth miles away. There would be no lack of dry firewood for years. Trees, whole forests of them, had been uprooted. The greater fell where they stood, but the lesser had flown through the air like gigantic, bewitched besoms. Ian had seen one forced, roots first, through the wall of a house. And then, to add to the misery of the homeless and bereft, it had snowed and snowed and snowed. |
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Warm as he was, Ian shivered a little with memory. He had ridden home to Roselynde through it, his horse belly deep at times, so that he had to dismount and struggle along on foot. It was as well he had. Although his fears that even the great keep of Roselynde could not withstand that fury of wind and water had been |
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